2-14-2012- dont tell momma i worked in the oil fields , she always thought i was a piano player in a whorehouse. 

        well college was a blur , i learned lots of things there. it costs money to go and if you blow your money and get drunk it makes it hard to make it class the next day and sometimes 2 days later. and somewhere along the way if you don't get a degree , you need to go to work doing something productive. and so since i was living in the wooster ohio ,area and friends were already working in the oilfields making good money it only seemed the natural place to go to work. 

      i had been doing farm work all my life and driving a tractor or operating a piece of equipment was nothing new to me. would have went to work farming and did try that for awhile , but pay was nothing compared to what i could make working in the oilfields at that time. it wasn't long before i was driving truck for halliburton well serv.. at first i started out as labor for a frac crew but soon progressed to an acid truck . the acid truck wasn't to bad . but warnings  of the acid and its use and handling were scarce at best. think i heard , if you get it on you wash it off quick or you will lose skin. and they were right as it wasn't long before i had my first battle scar after splashing some on my hands and it didn't heal for over 2 weeks. was told it was hydroflouric and hydrochloric acid. this was used to clean the well pipe and open the pores of the sand rock we would be fracing the next day. 

     to go out on a frac job in 1977 was an experience and i am sure it is much the same today . first thing after they drill a well to the desired depth and log the oil well, which is where they determine where the oil is by radioactive measurements , they then perforate with dynamite the well casing opening up holes to allow the oil to return to the well casing. then they start the fracing process . 

      trying to simply state what fracing was then as it is now is to hydraulically by water pressure expand the cracks and fissures in oil bearing rock strata to create channels for the oil to return to the drill casing allowing it to be pumped out. they use water acid and now carbon dioxide and nitrogen to freeze the rock at the level of production followed by sand to prop open these channels and create a porous channel for the oil to flow. well maybe not so simple and to imagine that no one knows if it really works for sure at those levels as no one has been to that depth to tell for sure. in theory it works and i wouldn't be surprised watching some wells produce. everything you put down there comes back sooner or later. 

      we would take about 25 trucks back then and convoy from one job to another sometimes doing 2 jobs or 3 if they were close together. 14-16 hr. days were common. we would pull on site and dozers would hook on to the front of your truck and drag you into the well site. sometimes they would rip off your brake lines and mud would be so deep you could reach out the door of the truck and touch mud piled up as high as the truck on both sides of the road. you were not driving as the dozers would pull you up to well head and spin you around as if your truck was a toy, and place you where they wanted you. unlike the semi -paved job sites they offer today. 

    men would pile out of the trucks grabbing heavy iron pipes linking truck to truck until you were all in a way connected to the oil well pipe. water had been brought in by a water truck from a stream close by and placed in large water tanks , valves were opened and water, acid and other chemicals were added by a blender truck and huge pumps would pump this slurry into the well casing  with engines racing so loud you couldn't hear yourself think and steel lines would jump on the ground as the pressure inside the steel casing shot to new heights.sending water acid sand , and slurry a mile down the casing to explode the rock at the bottom of the well . the blender operator was the man who had control of the frac and when a pressure release occurred it was just a matter of shooting the water and sand into the formation as much as they can. then it was tear everything down , load on to trucks , hook to a dozer , and rip off the rest of your brake lines as they pull you out to the road again. a mechanic would wait for us to repair the air lines or to use a tow truck to tow some trucks back who had ripped out rear ends . sometimes you would head home and sometimes you head to another well site. after about 3 months of this madness i was able to switch to a cement crew. this was better but it was a 24 hr. a day job. and it seemed it was always in the middle of the night they would call you.

         you would get so thirsty back then as employees hardly had the benefits they do today, and can remember running out of water and being so thirsty you would drink out of mud puddle and so i did .  as the sweat and heat of the day and the grime was in your system already. so whats a little mud. 

      eventually we would make it back to the shop clean our trucks , and then head to a bar to mark our conquest of nature. to force the earth into yielding those petroleum products we so depend on. still dry from the days heat would lead to over indulgence of the spirits that would take their toll the next morning when we had to roll out for the next round. 6 days a week and sometimes 7 would be nothing to do. you hardly had time to spend money yet still managed to do so. where it went , not quite sure but know it went . i guess the only thing i have left is a memory, and an understanding that life isnt easy, never was, and you have to work at it even when you are having fun. a disabled friend of mine answered after i asked him the other day what he was up to . and he said loud and proud ,' living the dream'. he has to struggle to just work and is out there every day trying his best. couldnt imagine it being a dream being in his shoes but then i guess i never walked that walk.